Wednesday, February 17, 2010

Before I even begin to blog I must make a few things perfectly clear. When it comes to chicken soup there are probably as many recipes as there are practitioners, but the basics remain the same......you puts your chicken in a pot along with celery, onion, carrots and water, toss in some salt and pepper and a sprig of parsley and simmer the hell out of it.........result, ambrosia, Jewish Penicillin, comfort food supreme. If you needed just chicken broth you would strain the veggies out at the end, but otherwise after an hour or two of simmering you had a gorgeous pot of the real stuff. It should be easy, right? So how come so many things can go wrong?

For instance, when I was a very little girl I always had my eye out for some goodie I could sneak from the magic spells my Mamma and Grandma were performing around the kitchen. Often I would find a spoon, carelessly left unmonitored, which had just finished stirring a cake batter or bowl of frosting. Oh, the delicious joy of it, moreso I think because it was a stolen pleasure. However, once in a while my gluttony would outpace my caution or critical judgment.......like the time I came upon the monster Stirring Spoon sitting on the drainboard with what appeared to be some unidentified but frothy looking stuff that I took to be a kind of whipped cocoa icing. It was not till I had devoured most of it that I realized I had made a huge mistake. "Ugh", I said with trepidation gripping my heart, "what was this stuff in the spoon?" My Mother sighed the sigh of all mothers approaching the end of their tether. "I've told you to ask first, haven't I?", she responded........."your Grandma just finished skimming the fat and scum from the chicken soup and it serves you right." Not a drop of sympathy there......Well.....it didn't kill me but it taught me that chicken soup was not such totally wondrous stuff through its entire process.........in its early stages it was a thing to be avoided like the plague.

Tha reminds me of another time my haste caused me to escape death from poisoning by the skin of my teeth. It doesn't deal with chicken soup but I'll tell it anyway. You may not believe this, but there was a time on this earth that water was something that came out of faucets and hoses but never appeared in a bottle that one carried around.. Consequently, I would often come home from school totally parched and rush to the kitchen sink for a drink, sure that I would die of dehydration before I could guzzle down enough water to slake my thirst. One day my condition was the worst it had ever been and as I staggered with swollen tongue to the sink I noted that the water glass that always sat there was already about a quarter full. To save time I grabbed it, added a bit more water from the faucet, slogged down the contents and once more was seized with the wave of trepidation that follows one's ingesting of a substance that was not actually what one was expecting. My mother and I both started talked at the same moment. "Mamma, what was in this glass on the sink?", I gasped. "Lois, be careful not to use that glass on the sink.....I was saving some Clorox to bleach the drainboard tiles.", my mother warned. Omigod,omigod....I drank the Clorox.....will I die??? Omigod. After both of us ran around the kitchen for a while like the proverbial chickens with their heads cut off my Mother had a brilliant idea. We would call Mr. Simkins. my best friend's father who happened to be a pharmacist, to find out if there was an antidote to ward off certain death. I described the situation to him as best I could, considering I had only a few more minutes to live and he took in every word, interjected a few grunts and paused before answering. (In fact, afterward I was convinced that the strange choking noises I heard over the line was not phone interference but actually Mr. Simkins trying not to laugh uproariously.) "Do you have any pain or burning sensation in your mouth, throat or stomach?, he inquired. When I told him that I did not he sighed and said, "Well, Lois, I guess if you could drink it you can probably digest it." And so I did, but I burped Clorox for about 6 hours afterward and I can tell you I never want to drink Clorox again. But, I digress.......back to chicken soup........

When I was young I vividly remember my cousin, Ruth, sitting in our kitchen wringing her hands over a recent culinary disaster. Now at this moment in time she was no longer a young woman and probably had made at least a half a gazillion pots of chicken soup for her family so it wasn't that she didn't know how. Apparently she simply lost focus for a few moments, daydreaming about running away to Paris with Clark Gable or Rudolph Valentino as women were known to fantasy in those days. With tears in her eyes she told us, "I made a double batch because I wanted a lot of chicken broth for a recipe I wanted to try. I carried the pot over to the sink and got out my big strainer, poured the whole potful in and then realized I had forgotten to put a container under the strainer. I didn't know what I had done till I saw the last drop disappearing down the drain. Omigod, omigod, do you think I am going crazy??" It took a good part of the day to convince her that she wasn't going crazy, but it is possible that Alzheimers was beginning to set in (though we had never heard of Alzheimers in those days......the men in the white coats with the strait jackets was what everyone feared.)

Anyway, the other day I went through all the steps to create a huge caldron of chicken soup and when it was simmering properly I came into my study to check my email and perhaps browse through some blogs.......I even brought my cooking timer with me because I have been known to forget pots simmering on the stove till the contents were unrecognizable and certainly inedible. It's a good thing I did because I got lost in cyberspace but when the bell went off I rushed in and checked out the soup......perfect, so I turned it off and scampered back to my browsing.

Some time later I was overcome with the scent of chicken soup gone wrong and I rushed into the kitchen to see what could possibly be happening.........lifting the lid I peered into a pot that contained not a trace of chicken soup, just an unidentifiable sludge, not quite burned, but certainly reduced to hell and gone.....It seems that what I actually did was turn the burner up to Hi rather than to Off.....sob. I pray the possums may not notice the slight tinge of scorch.......they are SO forgiving.

After I finished my most recent blog I realized that, in making light of the attack of Bloggers' Brain from which I was suffering, .....(actually the truth is that I had fallen into a very deep spell of depression from which I am just now emerging) I had once again relapsed into the dreaded Pollyanna Mode. For those of you who haven't a clue as to what that is I can only shake my head sadly in recognition of your pitiful deprivation and do my best to enlighten you.

Pollyana was a poor l'il ol' orphan girl in a novel from the 20's or, perhaps the 30's. She had the odd habit of never accepting disaster for what it really was and always making it into something for which she could be disgustingly grateful. i.e. the most glaring example I recall was early on in her life as she was looking forward to receiving some wonderful Christmas gift from the Church Gift Barrel and when her turn came all that was left was a pair of crutches. Instead of tearing her hair, rending her flesh and screaming, "Not fair....why me?" and a few choice epithets, she drew the ragged tatters of herself together and bravely opined that she could be Glad, Glad , Glad that she had received the crutches because the wonderful thing was that she didn't NEED them. She became known as the Glad Girl and was, of course, outwardly admired and probably secretly detested because, how the hell much of that saccharine crap can a small town take without having to find some spacious place for everyone to frow up. As I remember, I guess that town could actually take a lot of that crap because I think there were a number of sequels and 3quells after the original book. However, I cannot tell you why or how it happened, but apparently the Glad, Glad, Glad message must have wormed its way into my psyche at a very tender age because I have found myself, at many wretched moments in my life, falling back on a somwhat similar philosophy.

Often I am not even aware of what I am doing, but when I catch myself at it it always shocks the hell out of me to find myself bravely making brownies out of what is obviously nothing but a pile of bull pucky. I have always felt that I have been so damned lucky in so many ways that it is shameful of me to protest, rant, rave and wail when things happen to come out not so hunky-dory now and then. It seems so mean spirited and immature to complain so I find myself resorting to what I call the Pollyanna mode and finding some rather far out reasons to be Glad rather than to let fly with what I consider the perfect response to any disaster.....something I learned from my dear friend Dorothy which has served me well for ever so many years.....an utterance perfect for the complex occasion such as when accidentally applying hammer to thumb instead of nail or the simple case of stepping into doggie poo........the exquisitely crafted and so satisfying phrase, "Oh, Shit, Piss, Fuck !!."

If Pollyanna had ever known Dorothy, I have a hunch she might never have become known as the Glad Girl, and consequently, neither would I. So, for the record, even though I may have made light of my plunge into the dark pit of Poor-me-ness what I really meant to say was....Oh, Shit, Piss Fuck !.

About Me

Maverick of a weird, but wonderful family. Have managed to stay alive for an astounding 86+ years kept alive by a passionate interest in many things and a sense of humor.
Have led 2 or 3 separate lives,the first 40 years as a starving artist, ceramist, and graphic designer. At age 40 a matchbook cover that said "Be A Computer Programmer" inspired me to go back to school and emerge as a binary fanatic. Loved my work, had a wonderful 20 year career as programmer and trouble shooter. At the same time I had the chance to meet, befriend and marry Jazz Cornetist Pete Daily,an idol of my youth, whom I had worshipped in my young life. Lost him to cancer after 11 wonderful (and sometimes awful) years. Retired in 1989 and had 20 years of fantastic travel adventures all over the world. Now I crochet afghans, tend my garden, my 3 cats, the neighborhood birds and squirrels, a flock of voracious hummingbirds and assorted wildlife like possums and raccoon families who come nightly to my Porch Buffet. A great life, and it ain't over yet !....(after all, I have just discovered Blogging....)